DIY NAS

[Liber Pater]

I am making a cheap DIY NAS media fileserver using Raspberry Pi 4, Samba, and a 2+ TB external hard drive (I don't necessarily need local data redundancy, so at this point I am only looking to buy a single drive). I cannot decide what type/model of hard drive to use for this project, although I am looking for something cost-effective. Should I just go for the cheapest HDD I can find or should I shell out for an SSD or NAS drive?

 

[Dell Conagher]

It really depends on your usecase, SSD is fast and expensive, but has its own issues. What I would do is get a NAS HDD (its different from a normal HDD because its rated to be "on" 24/7) I have had good experiences with Western Digital, but Seagate is also a good brand. aslong as its NAS or Enterprise graded you shouldn't have much to worry about.

this is probably the drive i would get if i were to get a 2tb disk just go up in size untill you hit your budget limit

Please gift one of these to @Null so he can stop being a bitch about the 100mb upload limit

 

[Pissmaster]

I've been meaning to build one out too, though with an older computer of mine

• Is there anything wrong with my old computer's specs for the purpose? It's got a Core 2 Duo from 2008, with 4GB of RAM
• I'd like for it to run Plex, but it's not 100% necessary, I mainly just want a home file server
• Is there any particular reason why I shouldn't just plug up my smattering of external HDDs? I'll be the only one using them, and I don't plan on having any automated backups or anything. It'd just be a personal file server for hoarding all my random crap, so I don't need them to necessarily spin 24/7, just be available whenever
• FreeNAS y/n? Or is there something else worthwhile?

 

[Dell Conagher]

I've been meaning to build one out too, though with an older computer of mine

• Is there anything wrong with my old computer's specs for the purpose? It's got a Core 2 Duo from 2008, with 4GB of RAM
• I'd like for it to run Plex, but it's not 100% necessary, I mainly just want a home file server
• Is there any particular reason why I shouldn't just plug up my smattering of external HDDs? I'll be the only one using them, and I don't plan on having any automated backups or anything. It'd just be a personal file server for hoarding all my random crap, so I don't need them to necessarily spin 24/7, just be available whenever
• FreeNAS y/n? Or is there something else worthwhile?

1. No Not really, but see point 2
2. If youre deadset on plex you might need some more ram / better hardware but please look into Jellyfin
3. Not really you do you, boo, if you decide to go linux you can use mergerFS to combine all your external drives into one big "tank" or if you are seasoned autist just use ZFS
4. I hate nas dedicated OS, youre better off just running "pure" linux, and if you want to get nasty use docker containers.

right now Im running a media server with hardware from 2013, 6gb of ram and 4 cores it handles anything i throw at it in jellyfin without transcoding (1080p)

 

[Win98SE]

I've been meaning to build one out too, though with an older computer of mine

• Is there anything wrong with my old computer's specs for the purpose? It's got a Core 2 Duo from 2008, with 4GB of RAM
• I'd like for it to run Plex, but it's not 100% necessary, I mainly just want a home file server
• Is there any particular reason why I shouldn't just plug up my smattering of external HDDs? I'll be the only one using them, and I don't plan on having any automated backups or anything. It'd just be a personal file server for hoarding all my random crap, so I don't need them to necessarily spin 24/7, just be available whenever
• FreeNAS y/n? Or is there something else worthwhile?

Go with your Linux distro of choice. FreeNAS has a weird learning curve.

I'd avoid Plex and check out Emby if you want that kind of thing. There's some other options, too, like just organizing the files well and running Kodi.

If you don't care about backups or doing it "properly", just plug in whatever. At the end of the day you just want files to be available on the network and that's relatively easy to do. Once you get into all the different RAID setups it's a whole different ballgame that IMO isn't worth it for most needs.

 

[Liber Pater]

It really depends on your usecase, SSD is fast and expensive, but has its own issues. What I would do is get a NAS HDD (its different from a normal HDD because its rated to be "on" 24/7) I have had good experiences with Western Digital, but Seagate is also a good brand. aslong as its NAS or Enterprise graded you shouldn't have much to worry about.

this is probably the drive i would get if i were to get a 2tb disk just go up in size untill you hit your budget limit

Please gift one of these to @Null so he can stop being a bitch about the 100mb upload limit

What are your opinions on used hard drives?

 

[Leibowitz]

What are your opinions on used hard drives?

Results will vary. I wouldn't buy used consumer grade drives, they are crappy enough brand new. Used enterprise drives are a bit better, but resellers like to wipe the drive Smart data by overwriting the firmware, which has the annoying side effect of causing the drives to always run at 100% rpms and become really loud.

Short story, just pony up $130 and get an 8tb easystore.

I'd avoid Plex and check out Emby if you want that kind of thing. There's some other options, too, like just organizing the files well and running Kodi.

Check out Jellyfin too, it's Emby but open source.

 

[Dell Conagher]

What are your opinions on used hard drives?

Personally I avoid them like the plague, but if you scrub them properly it could be usable I guess

Do you know / trust the person who was the previous user of the drive? the reason i ask this is because, they might have had some shady shit on that harddrive. things you might need to answer for should you be done like Null did SIG and got him raided

how used are we talking? because longevity is a thing, and is it enterprise grade or normie grade?

you should also read this
if youre getting a used drive, you need to do a REAL good clean, full burn in, and S.M.A.R.T Tests

 

[Stasi]

1. If youre deadset on plex you might need some more ram / better hardware but please look into Jellyfin

Jellyfin looks neat, I'll have to mess around with it sometime.

Right now I use Gerbera. Not as pretty as the other options but works for me, I just use it to play media around the house off an old laptop. Might be more trouble than the others as I had to fuck around with config files and learn as I went along but works OK now.

Did have trouble with transcoding - it does transcoded but for some reason I just couldnt get my roku stick to recognise the files, dont know if that was a roku problem though or the software.

 

[White Devil]

Personally I avoid them like the plague, but if you scrub them properly it could be usable I guess

Do you know / trust the person who was the previous user of the drive? the reason i ask this is because, they might have had some shady shit on that harddrive.

Can confirm this. My friend bought his neighbors old computer from the guy before he moved and asked me to check it out. This was probably 2006-7. Found actual CP on it. Called the police so fucking fast.

 

[stares at error messages]

Can confirm this. My friend bought his neighbors old computer from the guy before he moved and asked me to check it out. This was probably 2006-7. Found actual CP on it. Called the police so fucking fast.

Pedos are usually retards, therefore they don't DOD wipe their drives. Could there be a market for selling DOD wipe software to pedos?

 

[White Devil]

Pedos are usually retards, therefore they don't DOD wipe their drives. Could there be a market for selling DOD wipe software to pedos?

Is this really a market we want to encourage though?

 

[stares at error messages]

Is this really a market we want to encourage though?

Of course not. But if it's going to be there... It could be argued that said software could be used by law enforcement to find pedos. For example upon being run on a HDD the software could check the continence for CP or just use the software as a pretense to install a root-kit on to the computer.

 

[Nigger Alien]

Raspberry Pi 4

I guess Pi doesn't have gigabit ethernet port still so don't buy SSD is a waste for copy/write times. Also for Plex transcoding you need minimum 8gb of RAM,i used Plex with Drive and its shit even Kodi handle better streaming.

 

[Some JERK]

+1 for Emby. It has a few quirks but the amount of features in the free version are excellent. In my opinion it beats the pants off of Plex all day long.

 

[Kheapathic]

Pedos are usually retards, therefore they don't DOD wipe their drives. Could there be a market for selling DOD wipe software to pedos?

The ones who are smart would probably just let DBAN run for 24 hours before discarding it. 7 passes of DBAN is apparently sufficient enough to meet DoD 5220.22; so can let it run longer just to be sure. Or you can just hand it to the FBI; they'll take care of it for you.

Seriously though; used hard drives are a trust thing for me. If you're a close friend, yeah I got you. If you're on craigslist or something; I think you're parting out something you stole, didn't take good care of it, or there's hellfire on it.

 

[Dick Justice]

Echoing ZFS because ransomware ain't nuthin' to fuck with. @Pissmaster since you're making one to
OP any particular reason you're doing SMB over NFS?